They weren't related, I had the first Max nearly a decade ago and killed him with my lack of knowledge (I got him from school as a little kid) he probably didn't live barely longer than a year. Max the second lived for 4 years and died today. I always read this website and decided to become a member for my future pursuits in Betta. I was on a weekend fishing trip (yes ironic, don't worry I didn't catch anything) with my uncle and my mom left 40 pellets of food in there for the entire time(10 gal tank so she wanted to fill it up)
I plan on getting more Betta through out my life and my goal is to make sure they all live at least for 5 awesome years.
RIP MAX I and MAX II